Museums in Medellín
Museums: the best places in and around Medellín, verified one by one.
- 9 places
- 9 zones
- average
Top ratedCasa Museo Pedro Nel GómezAranjuezThe private residence, studio, and permanent museum of master Colombian muralist and polymath Pedro Nel Gómez (1899-1984). Set in the northern neighborhood of Aranjuez, it preserves over 3,000 artworks and 160 square meters of breathtaking original wall and ceiling frescos exploring social struggles and mythology.
Top ratedMuseo El CastilloEl PobladoEl Castillo was raised in 1930 as a country house for the doctor José Tobón Uribe, designed by the firm H. M. Rodríguez — Medellín's first significant architecture office — in a medieval Gothic inspired by the châteaux of the Loire valley: towers finished in spires and ogival windows.
Museo Choza Marco Fidel SuárezBelloBello is called the cradle of Marco Fidel Suárez, and this hut is the literal reason: he was born here in 1855, the man who would go on to the presidency of Colombia between 1918 and 1921.
Museo Casa de la MemoriaJesús NazarenoThe Casa de la Memoria was born in 2006 out of an initiative aimed at the victims of the Colombian armed conflict, and is today the space in the city where that history is told without evasion.
Museo de AntioquiaLa CandelariaThe Museo de Antioquia was born on 29 November 1881 as the Zea Museum and Library, the first in the department and the second in the country. It closed years later, reopened in 1946 through the Sociedad de Mejoras Públicas, and took its present name in 1977, when a donation from Fernando Botero gave it its first room devoted to the artist. Today it occupies the former Municipal Palace, facing Plaza Botero.
Museo de Arte Moderno de MedellínCiudad del RíoThe MAMM occupies a building in Ciudad del Río combining an old industrial shed with a contemporary extension, and is Medellín's principal space for modern and contemporary art.- Top ratedCasa Museo OtraparteEnvigadoOtraparte was the home of Fernando González, the Envigado thinker and writer whose work is still read without having aged. It became a museum in 1987 and today houses the foundation that bears its name.
- Top ratedMuseo de la Loza y la Cerámica contemporáneaCaldasCaldas is, alongside El Carmen de Viboral, the other Antioquian town with a ceramics tradition, and this museum explains why. In August 1881 the Compañía Cerámica Antioqueña was founded here; it went on to be called Locería Colombiana and ended up as the Corona company.
- Museo Casa GardelianaManriqueMedellín has a particular relationship with tango: Carlos Gardel died here, in an aviation accident, on 24 June 1935. The Casa Gardeliana is the city's answer to that connection.
Before you go
The museums in this category tell Medellín's story from very different angles. The Museo de Antioquia, downtown, holds a large collection of Fernando Botero alongside art from other periods; the Museum of Modern Art, in Ciudad del Río, focuses on contemporary work; the Casa de la Memoria explains the armed conflict and its victims; and the Museo El Castillo, in El Poblado, is a castle-like mansion with gardens. There are also small, very personal museums, such as the Casa Gardeliana in Manrique, devoted to tango.
Beyond Medellín, the neighbouring towns have their own: the Casa Museo Otraparte in Envigado, home of the writer Fernando González; the Choza de Marco Fidel Suárez in Bello, about the president who was born there; and the Museo de la Loza in Caldas, which recalls the town's ceramics tradition. Prices range from free to $$, and several are free to enter.
Before you go, check opening times on each museum's official channel, since not all of them open every day. Allow at least two hours for the big ones, and pair the Museo de Antioquia with Plaza Botero, which is right in front and a step from Parque Berrío station.
